Here I am in an artsy local RVA (that's "Richmond, Virginia," with a branding handle) magazine, ready to talk about the books already out and the ones still in progress.

 

It was 2008; it would take another five years before my third book was ready ... That's one of history's quirks: It takes a dang long time to research and write about.

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The first picture inside the text is admittedly cheesy. I think I was trying to do the Tyra Banks thing and smile with my eyes (I will not call it "smizing"). It is so cheesy, in fact, that a colleague at the university photocopied the page and hung it up in the office with the caption "Writers Like Cheese."

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I was beyond embarrassed.

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I do like the fact that the picture in question shows the sleeping porch of my 1920 house, which I used as a writing room. At the time, it helped me to have one room in which I did nothing but work on my novel-in-progress, The Kingdom of Little Wounds. I also grew orchids in there, and apparently a big croton. There was a nice view of my little backyard, where I had two trees of unusual size for a small city lot. (The people who bought the place from me cut down the trees and destroyed the goldfish pond--but I got the fish out before I moved to my next place, a farmhouse near the river.)

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The full issue can be found on Issuu.com, here: https://issuu.com/tedrandler/docs/urge_3_issuu. My interview starts on page 47.

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